swaged 356/357's

[Forrest r]

Had some free time today so I finely got around to trying an idea I've been thinking about for awhile now. It's pretty easy to make a bullet profile that will expand or a standard rn or swc. I had a couple ideas about making a nose profile that will increase penetration & be able to be used in either a revolver or a semi-auto pistol.

For a solid nose profile I came up with what I'm calling a swept wing street fighter. The nose has arched sides that blend into the shoulders of the bullet & instead of a flat meplat it has a second arch/dimple with a tip on it. Come spring it will be tested on car doors, house/business doors, drywall, walls, etc. Should prove interesting.

It's a 147gr's:

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I also wanted to test a hp design that would allow for more penetration also instead of rapid expansion. It's a plain swc design that has a narrow deep hp that has a flare at the top/opening. The flare & narrow hp should allow for a slower opening of the hp creating more penetration. I plan on testing these in snub nosed 38's up to 10" bbl'd 9mm & 357 contenders.

It's a 147gr bullet also:

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forrest r

[MOcaster]

Those look awesome! Did you use a drawn down 9mm case for the jacket or did you do something easier?

[Forrest r]

The jackets are 9mm cases. I use a home made draw die & an arbor press to draw these down. Cane-man did an excellent write-up on annealing brass. If the 9mm cases are properly annealed it takes very little effort to draw a 9mm case (.384?) down to the .355 I draw them down to. From there I swage them to .357 to make the bullets, if I want to use them in a 9mm I'll run them thru a .356 draw die.

These bullets are nothing more than more plinking fodder but they are also extremely cheap to make.
9mm brass ='s free range brass
lead cores ='s free range lead
annealing brass ='s free Do the annealing in a fire pit drinking beer after cooking dinner in a dutch oven.
smelting lead='s $15 in propane a year for 300+# of cleaned lead/10# pot is 750 cores or $.50
casting ='s $.05 a kw or 2 hours to cast 10# (750) cores/$.10
clean brass ='s $.05 a kw or 4 hours in a 250w tumbler $.05 and 40#corn cob/chick bedding ($10) clean 7500 cases on 1/2# or $.05 for 750
trimming brass='s $.05 a kw or $.005 an hour for the 100w hf saw/$.03 to trim 750 pieces of 9mm brass
swaging lube ='s free was given the lanolin & caster oil

I'm sure I misses something somewhere but it's running me around $.75/75 cents to make 750 of these jacketed bullets or $1 a 1000.

forrest r

[Cane_man]

lookin' good forrest... can you post a pic of the dies that you make? especially the eject punches for the HPs and nose profile... :!:

i think you can swage almost any poplular pistol or rifle caliber using just one of the three most common range picklup brass: 22LR, 9mm, 40SW

[Forrest r]

Cane-man, glad to here from you!!! I was just getting ready to send you a pm.

What do you think about trying to expand a 22lr (or mag) case out enough to use as a jacket for the 30cals?

Well anyway I use a couple of different setups for swaging the 357's. When I need a .355/.356 bullet I just draw a .357 bullet down & I've found that most 9mm's do better with a .356 bullet.

Here's a press with a hp die for swaging 357's.
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It produces a nice bullet, just need to make a couple other nose forming dies for it, I'll get around to it sooner or later.

My favorite dies are the old/simple "whack-a-mole" style that will screw into an old rcbs press. I have 2 different ones in .357, a herter's top & a well's bottom. Along with the nose forming dies that I made for them.

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The die body is .357 and has a flat base in it and the "whack -a-mole" ejector rod. The nose forming dies that I make use the shell holder in the ram to hold them. I had the well's laying around for ever & finely got around to making a couple nose forming dies for it. I can't remember what I did with the ejector rod that came with it so I used a 1/4-20 bolt & a piece of threaded scrap steel (high tech). A picture of the nose forming dies from the side.

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That well's body with the high tech ejector rod & high tech ejector (rubber mallet) & the home made nose forming dies made those bullets pictured in the 1st post.

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Somethings people make things too complicated, the base of the bullet is formed in the top die & the nose in the bottom die. These things are cave man simple & a new nose forming die is a scrap piece of steel and 1/2 hour away. And the hp's are threaded so different lengths/sizes/shapes can be changed in minutes.

oops, forgot the ejector.

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It's nice that something that simple can turn out swaged bullets so easily.

forrest r

[Cane_man]

ya forrest you are the king of KISS, looks great!

i dunno about 22LR to 30cal, seems like a bit of a stretch :)

problem i think is that the case wall is too thin and you can only stretch it so far, the 9mm however, is much thicker and it isn't too hard to get it down to 0.306... from what i have read, 6mm is about the limit for swaging up 22LR, but who knows, if anyone can figure it out you could